Issue 40, 2022

Soft, flexible and self-healable supramolecular conducting polymer-based hydrogel electrodes for flexible supercapacitors

Abstract

Conducting polymer-based hydrogels have drawn great attention recently as stretchable and soft electrode materials for flexible supercapacitors, for wearable electronics applications. In this work, we strategically combined a supramolecular approach and the ARGET–ATRP grafting methodology to prepare stretchable and self-healable poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT)-based conductive hydrogels with excellent electrochemical and mechanical properties. The supramolecular assembly of thiophene-3-boronic acid (ThBA) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), via dynamic boronate bonds, provides robustness for the PEDOT-based hydrogel. The hydrogen bonds between poly(acrylic acid) (PAA)-grafted-thiophene and PVA offer the fast self-healing properties to the hydrogel when exposed to mild pressures. After integrating the PAA-grafted-thiophene/PVA-based hydrogel with the self-healable, borate ester cross-linked PVA hydrogel electrolyte, the formed supercapacitor structure exhibits a specific capacitance of 222.32 mF cm−2, with an energy density of 19.8 μW h cm−2. The PEDOT-based hydrogel exhibits excellent electrochemical stability with 95.8% capacitance retention after 1000 charging–discharging cycles and a good capacitance recovery rate of 78.3% after the cutting–healing cycle. The utilisation of a supramolecular approach and the ARGET–ATRP grafting methodology could guide future developments in intrinsically stretchable and self-healable materials for wearable bioelectronics. The developed, intrinsically flexible and self-healable energy-storage device has potential for applications in the next generation of epidermal bioelectronics or other wearable electronics devices.

Graphical abstract: Soft, flexible and self-healable supramolecular conducting polymer-based hydrogel electrodes for flexible supercapacitors

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 8 2022
Accepted
20 9 2022
First published
20 9 2022

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022,10, 14882-14891

Soft, flexible and self-healable supramolecular conducting polymer-based hydrogel electrodes for flexible supercapacitors

B. Zhu, E. W. C. Chan, S. Y. Li, X. Sun and J. Travas-Sejdic, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2022, 10, 14882 DOI: 10.1039/D2TC03239B

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